The present invention relates to electrical circuit board connecting devices, and more particularly, to an electrical circuit board connector having two sets of contact pins and a plurality of internal switches which permit conductivity to be selectively established between pairs of contacts or between either contact of a contact pair and an electrical circuit on the circuit board.
In general, a printed circuit board is a device which provides a means of mounting and interconnecting conventional electric circuits on insulating substrates which form the boards. As is known, a printed circuit board consists of an insulating carrier upon which a conductive metal pattern is laid out to make desired connections between circuits which are mounted on the board. The conductive patterns are called lands. Typically, a connector is mounted on a printed circuit board for joining electrical circuits on the board with other circuits which reside in a location off of the board. Such connectors are customarily of the rack-and-panel type, and the circuit boards on which they are mounted are typically slidably held in a chassis.
Most printed circuit board connectors conventionally carry a plurality of contacts of the pin-and-socket type in a connector plug. The plug generally has a rectangular configuration and is attached to an edge of the board in order to mate with a corresponding receptacle mounted in a rack on the supporting chassis.
One drawback of existing printed circuit board connectors is that their contacts are generally capable of being engaged only by one other set of contacts in a receptacle which mates physically with the circuit board connector. Thus, when it is desired to change the circuit connections which a connector provides for electric circuits mounted on a board, one or more pins on the receptacle with which the connector mates must be rewired to provide the desired alternate routings. It is evident that provision of a set of contacts in addition to that already carried by a conventional circuit board connector, together with a means for selectively providing the electric circuits mounted on the circuit board with connections to one or the other of the sets of contacts, would expeditiously and effectively accomplish circuit linkage re-routing without the need for re-wiring. Moreover, if the switching means is also provided with a capability of establishing conductivity between selected ones of the two groups of contacts on the connector, then one or more electrical circuits on the board can be accessed through the connector of an adjacent board having a group of contacts which engage one of the groups of contacts on the first connector.
Heretofore, the design of conventional circuit board connectors has not lent itself well to selectively switching and routing electrical circuit paths between a plurality of adjacent connectors. However, because of the added switching capability which such a function would provide to a system including a plurality of adjacent printed circuit boards, it would be desirable to have a connector with an internal switching apparatus for use in routing signal paths through itself to an adjacent connector.